Liberal pollster heads to Japan for bike trip weeks out from Farrer byelection

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The Liberal Party may have a new face doing its polling ahead of the Farrer byelection, but if some of the numbers being bandied about in conservative political circles are any indicator, opposition leader Angus Taylor may be headed for a familiar result.

The party has brought in the erstwhile Peter Dutton adviser Michael Horner to do some polling work for the party ahead of the May 9 byelection, according to sources familiar with the arrangement, after Horner opened his research firm Fox and Hedgehog in the middle of last year.

But to say that confidence in Coalition circles looking ahead to Farrer is low would be generous.

There have been anecdotal reports of the Liberal candidate, Raissa Butkowski, polling in the low teens and falling. A crop of published polls, meanwhile, favour One Nation candidate David Farley as the front-runner to win the seat, where the Libs also face competition from the independent candidate Michelle Milthorpe, who has also been polling pretty well.

All told, Horner seems pretty relaxed about it all. Maybe even a little resigned to the looming prospect of another Liberal Party fizzer. How else to interpret the man being on a trip to Japan to ride the Shimanami Kaido bike route just days out from polling day?

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© Brisbane Times